How to Design a High-Converting Landing Page

What is a landing page?

Typically, a landing page is a web page that serves as the entry point for a website or a particular section of a website. (Source- Wikipedia)

Simply put, any page of a website where a visitor can arrive or ‘land’ on can be a landing page. It is built with a specific or a single conversion objective and with one business goal in mind.

The objective can be any of the following:

Awareness

Certain landing pages are designed to create awareness. Landing pages with the objective of awareness work best when launching a new brand or product.

Lead Generation

This kind of landing pages is designed to capture visitor information such as name, email, and phone number. The main purpose of this type of page is to get people to complete the form. And in exchange for visitors’ personal information, the offer must present a good value proposition. Visitors need to understand and appreciate the benefits of converting.

Direct sales

When direct sales are the purpose behind a landing page, it must have a strong Call-To-Action (CTA) button. Visitors must be able to complete the intended action. For example, they either buy a product, book an appointment, or register for a webinar. This page can create immediate revenue for your business.

Building a relationship

Nurturing visitors directly on your website is an advanced marketing technique. Landing pages focused on building relationships with visitors, act as an activation point. If done well, nurturing landing pages keep visitors clicking through and converting as you guide them through your on-site sales path.

Regardless the goal of your landing page, as digital marketers we know very well that landing pages are incredibly valuable tools. They are a powerful component of almost any digital marketing efforts. Your ads, Facebook or any other social media posts, and your email links should pitch specific landing pages.

As marketers, there is nothing as enticing as quality leads. Leads are a marketer’s oxygen. When you only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest, a well designed and optimized page layout can make all the difference. A page’s success or failure hinges on engaging visitors. It is high time that we take the designing of landing pages passionately. And when we do, your conversion rates can skyrocket!

What are the jobs of a landing page?

Any landing page has two jobs:

A landing page must keep the promise made in the ad, email, or a social media post.

Remember, start with the end in mind. Landing pages need to match the link that sends visitors to the page. So if you build a landing page and you don’t know the promise made in the link visitors click before getting to the page …you are not building a landing page. It can be an entry page, a home page, a category page, or a routing page but it definitely is not a landing page. Bottom line-landing pages must explicitly keep the promises made!

Landing pages must provide visitors a choice, have them make a decision, or drive them to an action.

If you are asking visitors to do something, it should not be subtle. If your design doesn’t make a visitor comfortable or confident taking an action on your promise or your offer, you are again not building a landing page but something else which can sabotage conversions.

How to build landing pages with high conversion rates?

Before we talk about What to Do to create an effective landing page, let’s review

What NOT to Do on a landing page.

Also, make sure you download the infographic at the end of this blog.

#1 Avoid using corporate templates

Corporate templates have a variety of jobs other than conversions. They include a number of elements and functions like:

Navigation

Branding

Ads

Offers

Features

Sidebars

Footers

Headers

These are just a few to name. All these elements and their functions are undoubtedly useful for marketing but not when utilizing landing pages as a marketing tool. These elements might be good for landing pages but only if used purposefully. They can be distracting and confusing.

#2 Ditch the weak call-to-action

When the goal of your landing pages is conversion, make sure that happens. Use a powerful call-to-action and remember ‘Submit’ is not a strong CTA.

With every new landing page, brainstorm various copy options for the CTA. Keep these points in mind:

Your call-to-action must keep or relate to the commitment made in the previous link.

Visitors need a reason to click on the form or CTA. Your copy needs to make the reason clear and persuasive.

#3 Unnecessary use of elements

When using colors, pictures or any other elements on your landing pages, ask the following question:

Will my visitors convert if I don’t include this element on the landing page?

If the answer is yes, do not use this element. Avoid the use of background animations such as rotating logos, sliders, parallax images, or scrolling animations. You do not need this to create an effective landing page. Only use these elements if they are absolutely necessary for the visitor to find the information they are looking for or the information you want them to see.

It is best to have a graphic designer craft your landing pages. They know the best practices with color, font, size, white spaces, negative spaces, and borders. Each of these aspects ensures your visitor has a good experience and finds the necessary information.

The same rule applies to content. Simple words are easier to connect with, and they are easier to comprehend. Do not use complex words. They will only confuse your visitors and Google will penalize you for their excessive use.

That brings us to the next point.

#4 Write copy first before designing the page

An ideal copywriter understands a visitor’s mind. They know the visitor’s psychology and writes the copy to fit. A copywriter writes not just to create product awareness but also to build trust. Their role is to subtly push the visitor down the sales and marketing funnel towards a conversion or purchase.

When a copywriter provides the perfect text, the designer knows exactly the message. It’s much easier to design the right message. Thus, a copying should happen first before design.

Now, let’s move to the ‘Dos’ of designing a landing page.

How to design a high-converting landing page

#1 Combine the offer with a form

The offer allows you to keep the commitment you made in the ad. And the landing page form allows the visitor to have choices, make decisions, and take actions. A form fill on the landing page is the most common way for a visitor to take action.

Make sure your landing page has a single offer. Multiple offers on a single landing page tend to confuse visitors. Landing page visitors may even leave your website without making a decision. Visitors don’t get what they expected and you are left with an increasing bounce rate.

According to Hubspot,

landing pages with multiple offers get 266% fewer leads than landings pages with a single offer.

A form can be a simple button, a link to a full purchase, or a subscription. The choice is yours. Decide what you would like your visitors to do once they land on your web page. And don’t overstuff the page with offers. Stick with just one offer, and again ensure it matches the link.

#2 A/B testing

A/B testing or split testing is comparing two or more versions of a web page to see which one performs better. You can compare two different copies for the same design of a landing page or you can compare two different designs for the same copy and so on.

This process basically shows two or more variants of a landing page for the same product or service to similar visitors at the same time. The one that gives a better conversion rate wins! The metric you need to watch in the A/B testing process is interaction rate. The page that gets the highest clicks has the best offer. This is the message or format that attracts the most people to click.

A/B testing can be done on most platforms where you run display ads. Running Facebook ads is a fantastic source for testing information because you can use many different ad styles. Trust us, Facebook can get you some very interesting targeted data. Another source for A/B testing is email service providers.

BONUS! Here is a list of tools you can use when creating your next high-converting landing page. Download their trials. Play with the tools. And get the best out of them.

Form Analysis – HotJar

Session Recordings – SessionCam, Inspectlet

Analytics – Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Convirza

Qualitative Research Using Surveys – Qualaroo, Survey Monkey

Phone Tracking – Convirza

A/B Testing – VWO, Optimizely, Omniconvert, Convert.com

And lastly, to summarize, when designing a landing page:

Decide the goal

Keep the promise

Have a strong CTA

Combine offers with a form fill

Test your page before publishing it

For more information, listen to the webinar conducted by Conversion Science’s ‘Genie at Work’, Brain Massey listen here.